**007 First Light’s TacSim Mode Is Barebones — A Shadow of Hitman’s Brilliant Endgame | IGN (Samuel Horti)**
So I've been reading Samuel Horti's piece from Ign on 007 First Light's new post-game experience, and it actually gave me pause because this thing called *TacSim*—a tactical simulation mode designed to serve as the main story's endgame content—is getting described in fairly brutal terms. The core complaints are stark: few missions available (not a ton of replay value), an awkward structure that doesn't feel particularly natural, and no sprawling sandbox space despite it being developed by Io Interactive—a studio famously known for making exactly *that* kind of post-game brilliance with its legendary Hitman Endgame mode added to the game in late 2016 during *Hitman Absolution*. What makes this genuinely interesting is that TacSim comes immediately after completing the main campaign as your early endgame activity, and if Horti's assessment holds up—which honestly tracks given my own experience with Io Interactive—then the comparison to Hitman really does favor its older sibling. It feels like a shadow of what *should* be there: this brilliant Endgame-style mode that defined an entire generation in gaming, reduced now almost down to something functional rather than expansive or deeply rewarding.
The broader implication here is kind of significant for how we should view the rest of 007 First Light itself—released May 27th on PC (with PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch also getting launches), followed by an estimated September 30 arrival in Q3/2026 specifically for the new Nintendo Switch 2 platform. If this post-game experience that benefits from being essentially a polished sandbox mode is going to be described as barebones, awkward, fiddly, small-scale rather than truly sprawling... then I have to wonder whether there might not be an echo of these same limitations throughout First Light's core gameplay loop itself? The comparison with Hitman really does work so well because it comes directly from Io Interactive—a developer already proven at exactly this kind of game architecture over many years. What do you guys think—does TacSim sound like something worth diving into once the campaign finishes, or should we be bracing for more disappointment?
Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/007-first-lights-tacsim-mode-is-a-shadow-of-hitmans-brilliant-endgame
So I've been reading Samuel Horti's piece from Ign on 007 First Light's new post-game experience, and it actually gave me pause because this thing called *TacSim*—a tactical simulation mode designed to serve as the main story's endgame content—is getting described in fairly brutal terms. The core complaints are stark: few missions available (not a ton of replay value), an awkward structure that doesn't feel particularly natural, and no sprawling sandbox space despite it being developed by Io Interactive—a studio famously known for making exactly *that* kind of post-game brilliance with its legendary Hitman Endgame mode added to the game in late 2016 during *Hitman Absolution*. What makes this genuinely interesting is that TacSim comes immediately after completing the main campaign as your early endgame activity, and if Horti's assessment holds up—which honestly tracks given my own experience with Io Interactive—then the comparison to Hitman really does favor its older sibling. It feels like a shadow of what *should* be there: this brilliant Endgame-style mode that defined an entire generation in gaming, reduced now almost down to something functional rather than expansive or deeply rewarding.
The broader implication here is kind of significant for how we should view the rest of 007 First Light itself—released May 27th on PC (with PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch also getting launches), followed by an estimated September 30 arrival in Q3/2026 specifically for the new Nintendo Switch 2 platform. If this post-game experience that benefits from being essentially a polished sandbox mode is going to be described as barebones, awkward, fiddly, small-scale rather than truly sprawling... then I have to wonder whether there might not be an echo of these same limitations throughout First Light's core gameplay loop itself? The comparison with Hitman really does work so well because it comes directly from Io Interactive—a developer already proven at exactly this kind of game architecture over many years. What do you guys think—does TacSim sound like something worth diving into once the campaign finishes, or should we be bracing for more disappointment?
Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/007-first-lights-tacsim-mode-is-a-shadow-of-hitmans-brilliant-endgame